SAN SALVADOR (AFP) - An official with El Salvador's leading political opposition was angry at US Vice President Dick Cheney for comparing his country's civil war in the 1980s to the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In his debate late Tuesday with Democratic contender John Edwards in Cleveland, Ohio, Cheney reacted to charges by his rival that violent insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were making democratization difficult in those countries.

"Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador," said Cheney. "We had -- guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress."

El Salvador's civil war was fought throughout the 1980s, and ended when the US-backed government reached a peace agreement with leftist rebels that was mediated by the United Nations.

The agreement, signed in January 1992, led to democratic reforms, put the military under civilian command, and got rebels with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) to disarm and become a political party.

According to Cheney, "the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as soon as they left, the voters would come back and get in line and would not be denied the right to vote.

"And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections," he said.

But for the FMLN, there is "no relationship" between what Cheney said and the situation in El Salvador, FMLN spokesman Eugenio Chicas told AFP.

El Salvador's civil war was rooted in social injustice, while the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of a preventive conflict unleashed by the United States, Chicas said.

"Politically and militarily they are two different contexts: in the case of Iraq the struggle is resistance against US occupation, which installed a government of their liking," said Chicas.

"And in the case of Afghanistan, the United States wants to decide its electoral future" while an armed resistance also fights the occupation, he added.

Salvadoran leftists were thugs who got violent because they weren't in charge. Just like the Saddamites and other Jihadist in Iraq. And like the DNC and their union thugs are getting with shooting at, storming into or just stealing computers at RNC offices.

7
posted on 10/06/2004 1:48:53 PM PDT
by KarlInOhio
(If they couldn't stand up to ...Howard Dean..., how can we expect them to stand up to Al Queda?)

I guess that attacks upon US soil that kill 3,000 citizens and guests don't count as social injustice. I guess sponsoring terrorists that have killed US citizens and allies doesn't count as social injustice.

El Salvador's civil war was rooted in social injustice,... blah, blah, blah

We need the School of the Americas(I know it has a different name now) to be opened up again and run 80's style.

The poor people of Central America are the ones that have to pay for the half-assed remedies of U.N. supervised deals. The same leftists are now in political power and will slowly destroy these countries.

At least when they were armed thugs in the jungle you could shoot them dead, now they rug elections and you can never get rid of them.

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